“One or more of the three companies involved in a $1,300 discount for an Apple Inc. iPhone 6 sold by Best Buy Co. Inc. and tied to a Sprint Corp. lease is losing money,” Douglas A. McIntyre reports for 24/7 Wall Street. “And it isn’t Apple. Best Buy and Sprint need customers and larger market share against their major competitors, and they are willing to go to great lengths to get them.”
“Best Buy offers the iPhone 6 at a $1,300 discount when purchased through its ‘Best Buy One Plan.’ The deal requires a two-year lease,” McIntyre reports. “Then, Sprint becomes part of the program. The battered wireless provider provides a plan for ‘unlimited high-speed data, talk and text.’ The customer has to take a 20-month lease, and with that gets the iPhone 6 for $0 and no sales tax. The offer is only available for ‘well-qualified buyers.’ Best Buy does not say who those qualified buyers are. The retailer does say that there are other monthly charges. The package taken all together costs $65 a month.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Both Best Buy and Sprint are in fights for their lives on many fronts and there aren’t any greater attention-grabbing loss leaders than iPhone 6.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
two really great companies… NOT!
Maybe it’s because I just woke up, but I don’t understand the math of this offer. How does one get $1,300 off for an item that only costs $649?
I’m fully awake and I don’t get it. An unlocked 128GB 6+ only costs $950.
A 20-month least @ $65 per is $1300, just a distributed purchase?
It’s only for the 16b from the looks of it as well. I still don’t see how they get 1300 dollars. i read a lot of the crap they put out there, and it just says free phone with a 65$ month lease. How is that 1300 dollars worth of discount? based on what? a 75$ plan? a 120$ plan? seems like they are grabbing at straws. Oh….and it doesn’t let you buy it online which is probably how best buy wins, they get more foot traffic, or at least they hope too.
Bait and switch.
Here is where the $1,300 figure comes from according to Sprint at http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-releases/sprint-launchesbest-buy-one-plan-unlimited-talk-text-and-data-plus-your-phone-for-one-low-price-available-only-at-best-buy.htm:
Compared to other national carriers’ installment billed purchased devices plus service for iPhone 6 (16GB) over 24-month period. Does not include optional Sprint device purchase at lease-end. Competitor plans may include international text/data features, tethering, carry-over data and cloud options. Other device purchase, lease & service plan options available; see carrier websites for details. Price comparison as of February 27, 2015
Aw c’mon Best Buy & Sprint, offer up the cricket response inducing Galaxative S6 & S6 Renege. Don’t you want to real free-spending affluent Android users? (Oh wait, that only works on the Bizarro World.)
“Galaxative” is the word of the month! Thank you.
I still think my AT&T plan with 600 minutes, unlimited data and 200 texts, where I buy a subsidized phone, own it, and sell it after two years, is a better deal. Two phones on this plan, cost $120/mo. I get a new phone every year.
I sent McIntyre an email a few years back to correct some of the things he wrote about Apple, and he sent me back the usual Apple-hater response. Why is MDN giving this hack a hit?
I wish Google or Apple would buy Sprint, continue to build out the LTE coverage and then offer a reasonable 200GB/month for $30 data plan. The current 2G/month standard with $10/GB after that is criminally low. At that rate it costs $70 to download just 1 HD movie!
I checked my sympathy meter for BestBuy just now and it read “zero.”
The customer service there is… Wait! WHAT customer service?
Recently at BestBuy, I asked a fat, sloppy BestBuy “associate” (who walked two feet in front of me as I stared at him hoping he would not deliberately ignore me as he walked by – but he did) where I could find a certain item. I did so in a courteous and friendly manner. By his surly and begrudging demeanor and scowl, you’d have thought I’d insulted his mother.
That’s not quite how the fake BestBuy “employees” (played by photogenic actors with smiles) act on the BestBuy TV commercials is it?
BestBuy is losing money, and so is McDonald’s. Do they wonder why?
They both suck!